Dueling Bassists:
Let’s face it: bassists Marcus
Miller and Victor Wooten are
top dogs in the jazz/music fusion world, having inherited
the mantle from the likes of Stanley Clarke, Larry Graham,
Bootsy Collins, and Jaco Pastorious. Both possess wondrous
technique on electric bass, both combine elements of
jazz, funk, R&B, pop music, and world music, and
both have outstanding credentials. These two low-end
lords often end up releasing albums within a few months
of each other in the same year, so it just seems natural
in some respects to compare their most recent releases.
Miller’s is called Marcus, and Wooten’s,
something of a soundtrack to his book, is Palmystery.
This time Jazzitude
has decided to review the two albums together
and see which one emerges victorious.
Late
Night Thoughts on Jazz: Esbjorn
Svensson: April 16, 1964--June 14, 2008
Swedish pianist Esbjorn Svensson died on June 14, 2008
in a diving accident off of Stockholm. He was forty
four years of age. Svensson was the pianist and leader
of the Swedish piano trio, E.S.T. (for Esbjorn Svensson
Trio), a modern group that confounded and delighted
listeners and critics alike in their ability to further
the language of the piano trio while retaining elements
from within the tradition.
Return
to Forever: A Brief History RTF came bursting
out of the gate with all the energy of rock music, but
with a technical proficiency only matched, perhaps,
by King Crimson and The Mahavishnu Orchestra. Now, as
the classic lineup (Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Al
Di Meola, and Lenny White) tours for the first time
since 1983 (after breaking up in 1977), and Concord
releases the excellent RTF: The Anthology,
Jazzitude takes a look at what the group's best known
lineup left as its legacy.
Late
Night Thoughts on Jazz:Louis
Prima's Magnagroove recordings The last period of Louis
Prima’s career is comprised of his work with fifth
(and final) wife Gia Maione as his vocalist. During
this period, Louis continued to work the Las Vegas circuit,
and was as popular as ever, but his recordings (on his
own Magnagroove label) acknowledged that times had changed
dramatically in the popular music world with a band
that included electric keyboards and guitars.
Bennie
Maupin/Early Reflections The return of Bennie
Maupin to somewhat regular recording, beginning with
his first Cryptogramophone release Penumbra
in 2006, is one of jazz music’s more welcome stories
of the past few years. Maupin, widely known for his
work with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock through the
late 1960s and well into the 1970s, is a strong tenor
saxophonist, bass clarinetist, and also plays soprano
sax and flute. In addition, he is a top-notch composer,
and his 1975 ECM release The Jewel In the Lotus,
has long been considered a classic recording (ECM just
reissued the album for the first time on CD last year).
Alvin
Queen/Jammin' Uptown and John Patton/Soul
Connection Alvin Queen was thrust onto the jazz scene
as a youngster by drummer Elvin Jones during the heyday
of Jones’ work with the classic John Coltrane
Quartet. Since then he has worked with Charles Tolliver,
Randy Weston, Dizzy Gillespie, and Oscar Peterson as
well as others. In the 1980s Queen was living in Europe
and recording sessions for his own Nilva record label
while on tour in the U.S. In 1983 and 1985 repsectively,
he recorded Soul Connection under organist
John Patton’s name and Jammin’ Uptown
as a leader of a group that included Manny Boyd, Terrence
Blanchard, and RobinEubanks.
Marcin
Wasilewski Trio/January The extremely good news
is that January, the second ECM release by
the Marcin Wasilewski Trio, shows a group that has grownby
leaps and bounds since the release of their first disc,
Trio.
The group has been named after its pianist now,
not merely by virtue of the fact that the pianist is
often the leader, but also because Wasilewski is truly
leading this excellent group of musicians. Nonetheless,
the group is in every sense a modern piano trio, meaning
that bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz and drummer Michal
Miskiewicz are equal members of the band.
Lionel
Loueke/Karibu Lionel
Loueke has been ubiquitous over the past several years,
logging recording and touring experience with Terence
Blanchard (Flow and Bounce), Avishai Cohen
(The Big Rain), Angelique Kidjo (Djinn),
Herbie Hancock (Possibilities and River:
The Joni Letters), and Charlie Haden (Land
of the Sun). His first Blue Note release as a leader
(Loueke has two independently produced albums available)
is entitled Karibu, and it presents a worthy
introduction to this entirely unique talent. Loueke
has absorbed much of the language of jazz guitar, from
Charlie Christian and Wes Montgomery to Pat Matheny
and Bill Laswell. Loueke has his own artistic voice,
though, and it is marked by the rhythmic bounce of African
music...
XML
FEED
